What are supercomputers currently used for?

As much as we imagine the technological revolution happening on personal computers, smartphones and tablets, the truth is it's the supercomputers that will show us how far technology is going. The rapidly advancing processors that serve supercomputers are what slowly trickle down into the market -- but not before impacting huge swaths of our lives, through military defense, weather, science and health research, and even gaming. One need only observe how fast one supercomputer's dominance is displaced by another faster, more powerful version to understand how much our lives depend on the advancing technology.